Set Up Conditional Access with Microsoft Search in Bing
Introduction Have you ever needed a way to allow some users to access Microsoft Search in Bing, while excluding others? Perhaps you want to exclude users who haven’t yet taken an orientation session, or perhaps you want to roll out this feature in stages. Well, you’re in luck! In this article, you’ll learn how to do exactly that, using a feature known as Conditional Access. With it, you can easily deploy Microsoft Search in Bing to any set of users you choose. Assuming that you have administrative permissions and a licensing option that enables Conditional Access to Microsoft Search, here’s how to use it to limit access to Microsoft Search in Bing to a specific subset of users. If you haven’t done this before, now is a good time to review best practices for conditional access to ensure that you don’t accidentally lock yourself out. Verify Access You should start by assigning a test user. Once you have a test account prepared, the first step is to verify that the test account can access Microsoft Search in Bing. Open your browser and sign in with your test account to bing.com using the “Work or school account” option. Type “my files” into the Bing search box to verify that Microsoft Search in Bing is working. You should see a result that looks something like this: Success! You now know your test account can access Microsoft Search in Bing. Now, let’s exclude this account via Conditional Access. Enable Conditional Access Start by signing into the AAD admin center as a global admin, via the Microsoft Search in Bing - Getting Started From the Security menu, choose Conditional Access. Tip: You can place Conditional Access (or any other frequently used resource) in the “Favorites” area of the left column by selecting “All services” and searching for the word “conditional”, then clicking the star next to the search result Click New policy and give it a name. Let’s include our test user. Click Assignments > Users and groups Then, on the Include tab, Select Users and groups Select ‘test user’ Then, switch to the Exclude tab and select your admin account Click Done when both selections have been made In the screenshot on the right of Figure 5, we’ve chosen to exclude the administrative account from this test policy—you don’t want to lock yourself out if you apply a policy like this to all users! Remember, a policy designed to block access won’t affect anyone who is excluded from the policy. The next step is to include the app or service we want our conditional access policy to apply to. In this case, it’s Microsoft Search in Bing. Verify that it is included under “Cloud apps or actions.” ve roles—but be careful! You’re almost there! Now that you’ve selected the users who will and won’t be affected, and the app this policy applies to, you just have to tell the policy what to do when it’s in effect. In this case, you want it to “Block.” So, select Block from Access controls > Grant, then click Select. When all of these steps are completed, click Enable policy ‘on’ and then click Create to create the new policy. After a brief validation step, you should see a “Validation Successful” message and the new policy appears under Policies. It’s time to test your new policy! Test with the “What If” tool The “What If” tool tests the impact of conditional access on a user when signing in under certain conditions. As the policy you created is designed to block access for “test user”, you start by selecting that user. Then, click “What If” to see what policies, if any, will affect this user. If you’ve done everything right, you should see something like this: Congratulations! You have successfully enabled conditional access. You can verify this by attempting to access Microsoft Search in Bing with the test user account. You will find that it is indeed blocked from signing in at the Bing sign-in screen. (Regular web searches with Bing still work, however.) After any sign-in attempt has been made, the event is captured in the Sign-in events log. As an admin, you can access a complete list of sign-in events by clicking on the graph on the main Overview screen. Let’s take a closer look at that ‘Failure’ event: Deploy the Policy Now you are ready to setup Conditional Access for actual users in your organization by applying this policy to their account. If you run into trouble, try typing a query such as “how to configure conditional access” into the “Virtual assistant” found in the Azure Active Directory admin center under Troubleshooting + Support. For more information See https://docs.microsoft.com/azure/active-directory/conditional-access/ for additional details.Introducing the Bing Enterprise Homepage
We're happy to announce a new experience just for Microsoft Search in Bing users: the Bing enterprise homepage. Now you'll see the same Bing homepage you love, enhanced with the work info you need, including popular bookmarks, meetings, recent files, and news. And with automatic sign in, you can get to the info even faster. What are the benefits of the Bing enterprise homepage? Customized branding: You'll see your company's logo and name right on the Bing homepage. Enterprise admins can configure the brand logo by customizing the Microsoft 365 theme for your organization. (Your logo will be changed across Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Search.) Fast access to popular and timely info: If your organization has added bookmarks in the Microsoft 365 admin center, you'll see popular bookmarks to help you get to important internal resources even faster. You'll also see your upcoming meetings—and who's invited. (And for an even fuller picture of your day, just click the see more link.) To help you pick up where you left off, you'll see recent files you and co-workers have collaborated on. News that impacts your work: Read the latest headlines and stories that matter to you and your industry. Enterprise admins can choose the industries for your enterprise, as well as topics important to your company, in your Microsoft 365 admin center settings (Org settings > Services > News). Search suggestions designed for work: Just like you see web suggestions when you start a search, now you'll see work suggestions too. Start typing a work-related search, like your manager's name, in the search box to see it in action. Highlight your news: Soon you'll be able to showcase your company's top internal news stories on the Bing homepage. Check out the image below for an early preview. When will I see the new enterprise homepage? The enterprise homepage updates started rolling out during the end of July. The admin controls for Industry news and internal news from your organization will roll out across tenants in August. Coming soon: More controls The right homepage for your business: We're working on features that will let enterprise admins customize the homepage for your organization, including turning off the homepage image by default. (Your users will still be able to turn it back on.) And for organizations that prefer the 'classic' Bing homepage, Enterprise admins will have the option to turn off the enterprise homepage features. Frequently asked questions Who can see work info on the enterprise homepage? Only you can see your work info. And your enterprise homepage is customized just for you. To help protect your privacy, you must sign in with a valid work or school account to see info from your organization. To learn more about privacy and Microsoft Search, see How Microsoft Search in Bing helps keep your info secure. How can I hide enterprise info on the homepage? To temporarily hide this info, minimize it by clicking the chevron control just above the enterprise section. Or, on the homepage menu (upper-right corner), turn off the Show news & work info toggle. Is this available outside the US? Currently, the Bing enterprise homepage is available in eight locations: Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Spain and the US. The Industry news carousel is only rolling out in the US. We hope you enjoy the new Bing enterprise homepage as much as we loved building it for you.How a Search Editor can save IT admins time
The Search Editor role is essential to enable and support the deployment of Microsoft Search in Bing across your organization. This is a sub-role assigned within the Microsoft 365 Admin portal and has one essential function: to curate content. Most organizations have a limited number of Global Admins (we recommend at least two) and, as such, the Global Admins’ time is usually quite constrained. So, it makes sense for the Global Admin to identify other IT staff and/or technical end-users to handle the task of managing and curating content such as Microsoft Search bookmarks, Q&As, and locations. These tasks do not require full permissions to access all areas of the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Instead, Global Admins can assign Search Editors–for example, employees with expertise in PR, marketing, or sales–to share in creation, and management of relevant bookmarks, Q&As, and locations. Companies with global offices can also utilize Search Editors for the localization of content. This role doesn’t require technical skills. Anyone can learn the user-friendly interface and create, edit, publish, delete, and review suggested content. (Their access in the Admin Center is limited to these actions.) Who creates the Search Editor role? The Global Admin assigns the Search Editor role within the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Why is creating high-value enterprise bookmarks essential for your organization? Bookmarks help with publishing and the promotion of the best possible results for business-related queries. The more bookmarks there are, the more value for users. For more information on creating good bookmarks, refer to the series published on the Microsoft Search blog. Why is creating high-value enterprise Q&A relevant for your organization? Creating answers for the most frequently asked questions in your organization helps users save time by quickly surfacing the information they need. Just like bookmarks, customized answers can be created based on different criteria such as country, security groups, and operating system. Read about managing Q&As. Which data are available to Search Editors to help them create the most relevant content? Search Editors can see how users engage with their results by accessing data insights through the Admin Center: View how many bookmarks and Q&As have been published, scheduled, or suggested View impressions for top search queries that show work results Analyze impression distributions for bookmarks and Q&A Is it possible to have more than one Search Editor within the same organization? Yes, there can be many Search Editors. We recommend having one per area of expertise. What can a Search Editor do? The Search Editor has full access to Microsoft Search settings within the Microsoft 365 Admin Center and can publish, edit, save, schedule, and import/export bookmarks, Q&A, and locations. Does the Search Editor need to be very tech-savvy? No. Basic training on how to access the Microsoft 365 Admin Center Search Settings and perform these tasks is all that is required. What can’t a Search Editor do? A Search Editor cannot assign another user as an admin, assign another user as Search Editor, or access other operative areas of the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. For more information: https://docs.microsoft.com/microsoftsearch/manage-bookmarks https://docs.microsoft.com/microsoftsearch/make-content-easy-to-findNew Microsoft Search Adoption Resources Available
We've recently published a new set of adoption resources for Microsoft Search in Bing to include ready to use, localized adoption kits. The Microsoft Search in Bing adoption kits include several ready to use templates for email, Teams, Yammer, and SharePoint to help your Office 365 users understand how Microsoft Search in Bing helps them be more productive every day. You'll be set up for a successful roll-out, no matter what your business challenges. The refreshed Microsoft Search in Bing adoption kits for August are available in English (United States, British, Australian, and Indian), Dutch, Italian, German, and French. You can download the Microsoft Search in Bing adoption kits at https://aka.ms/MicrosoftSearch. Here you'll also find the latest news and announcements for Microsoft Search, ready to use presentations and illustrations, and other resources to help drive usage and adoption of Microsoft Search in Microsoft 365 and beyond.Microsoft Search beta is limited to a small set of pilot users
Is Microsoft Search in Bing rolled out to all tenants? In our tenant it’s only available for admins and when a normal user wants to login in, he/she gets “Sorry, the Microsoft Search beta is limited to a small set of pilot users at this time.”. Our ServiceDesk has opened a Microsoft support ticket for this and their answer was “Maybe it’s not rolled out yet”. If yes, what’s the timing for the complete roll-out?
